A Q&A With Doug Hiatt of Legal Weed Initiative Sensible Washington

If Doug Hiatt gets his wish, all adult use of weed will be legal in Washington.

​As a lawyer for medical marijuana patients, Doug Hiatt has witnessed first-hand how Washington's confusing, byzantine pot regulations can wreak havoc on the lives of sick people just looking for a little pain relief. But it wasn't until he was issued a personal challenge that he decided to do something about it.

Hiatt says Mason County prosecutor Gary Burleson told him to put his money where his mouth was and put the issue to voters. Teaming with two other lawyers and the director of Seattle's Hempfest, Hiatt formed Sensible Washington, an initiative that would remove all state criminal penalties for adults who possess, grow and distribute pot - no matter how much.

Daily Weekly got in touch with Hiatt as he was jumping through some of the bureaucratic hoops required of Washington ballot hopefuls -- opening a bank account, doing Public Disclosure Commission filings and "having more fun than a human being should be allowed." After the jump, Hiatt talks about what makes his initiative different than the other legalization legislation floating around Olympia, why voters are smarter than politicians and how medical marijuana use might benefit the current Speaker of the House.

Hiatt says Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson's legalization bill won't even get a vote.

​Why this initiative? Why now?

Next year is my 20th year of practice. Drug policy reform is the one of the reasons why I went to law school in the first place.

You know what's happened in this country due to the drug wars and the draconian federal drug laws is that we've become the number one jailer in the entire world. I mean we have over two and half million people in prison and in this country and a very large percentage of them are non violent drug offenders. I don't believe it's a moral thing to lock somebody up for using a substance. I just believe locking someone up for that is immoral. If they want to harm themselves and maybe harm others with their habit that's a mental health or addiction or a medical problem. It's not an intentional criminal act.

It's not someone trying to hurt somebody or trying to burn down somebody's house or trying to rape somebody or murder somebody. This is somebody that's got an addiction and this is a medical problem and should be treated that way and not with prison.

Our debate about the marijuana law which was brought into being by voters from Washington state has been completely disrespected by most politicians. Virtually all law enforcement and most prosecutors' offices are having real trouble with it. It hasn't been respected by law enforcement and what people wanted to have happen by patients and doctors has never happened.

Our state marijuana laws make it a crime for anyone to give marijuana, selling marijuana or giving marijuana away is the same thing. You don't have to charge for it, it's still a crime. So the way this initiative works is it simply removes criminal penalties for adults--adults only. Remove penalties for adults for any possession, cultivation, delivery or manufacture, anything like that. All criminal penalties related to marijuana are repealed on the state law. The only thing left in place is the federal law and the federal law should in theory focus more on large level drug trafficking organizations that are out there to make profit or prey on people. Those laws will still be in effect.

Marijuana will still be under all federal law, but all the state criminal penalties will be removed. The state would save in the neighborhood of $150 million dollars a year and lots of peoples lives would not be ruined and we wouldn't be wasting our time prosecuting people for what is a very safe, benign, therapeutic substance--marijuana.